Blood Roses
by Heartstone The Keeper
Summary: Both born of Remnant, one forged in the light of civilization, the other cursed by the darkness of the beasts of Grimm, but both bound by the same intent of ridding the world of the Grimm, the two Roses must find safety and sanctuary in each other in order to free their world of Grimm. (Hiatus until figured out. /goo .gl/ScW8AS this is cover image, just remove the space)(Much Cuss)
1. The Thorn

**_A storm is loosed upon the sea,  
whose eye is stained with tears.  
A wretch Hell-bound and bent on blood,  
the makings of the fearful's fears.  
The tide it stole away her grace,  
the depths, they wouldn't claim her.  
A toil begat by father's blood,  
this path was laid before her.  
Redemption borne by brigand's blood,  
a blight upon the darkness.  
The pact embraced, a road unsought,  
the Maiden of Death won't be unwrought.  
Her wrath is known throughout the black,  
the gardens of death she is tending.  
Vengeance is her only ward,  
beware the blood red rose's thorn._**

My mother sang this song as she placed me, barely born, into a basket and set it into the surf of the ocean, destined to sojourn to another land mass of Remnant.

In the basket, along with me, was a black and white mask with an intricate rose and thorn design, the red blood of my father slowly running down the face of the mask from the rose at the center.

Along with the mask was a small piece of parchment bearing five small words that would, in time, determine the rest of my life.

My mother watched as I, too young to understand anything of the dark ritual that had just taken place, floated away in my small raft towards the horizon and my unknown destination.

As she watched, a single tear appeared at the corner of her left eye and slowly traveled down the side of her face. Even though she felt its short path and knew that it would leave a mark; she did not brush it away or stop its journey.

At last, once she could no longer see my makeshift boat, she spoke in a hoarse whisper, " ** _Goodbye my daughter. She who is doomed towards the same darkness as your ancestors all were before me. She who is doomed to the power of the darkness, and the curse that keeps us from the jaws of the beasts of Grimm. She who is doomed to forever wander the barren earth, searching for that which can never be found by our line; doomed to never know happiness in your life._** "

The necessary words said, my mother added a final note to her sad song, "Goodbye, the only light I ever knew, goodbye… my Thorn" and turned away, slowly walking back towards the burning village behind her, and the giant Nevermore circling above the blaze.

-Ruby Rose-

Receiving a whistle blow to the ear is not as pleasant as it is giving one, especially when one is deep in a pleasant dream about cookies, puppies, and dancing jelly beans.

"Wake up, my little lump!" Yang shouted into my face once I was sitting up in my suspended bed. "Whaa? I'm mm 'wake already. Wha' time is it?" I asked my sister, "Time for you to get up, lazybones. If you don't hurry, you'll miss breakfast!" Yang replied, "it may have been a weekend night last night, but that is still no excuse for not getting a full sleep."

I slowly rolled out of my bed, rubbing the crumbs from my eyes, 'got to stop staying up so dang late on the weekends' I thought to myself as I pulled on my school clothes.

"Wha?! Yang! You wake me up with a whistle and just leave Princess snoozing? Not. Fair." I complained when I saw that Weiss was still asleep in bed. "I figured I'd leave that job to you, Rubes." Yang called from the bathroom.

I voiced a complaint in the form of a groan, but still stomped over to the heiress' bed and poked her in the cheek.

Getting no reaction from the white haired girl, I poked harder, 'what's with her?' I thought as I shook the other girl's shoulder.

"What? What? I'm awake!" the heiress practically shouted as she came at last to life. "Monday. Morning. Breakfast. School." I stated as Weiss' eyes widened and the heiress got herself ready to go in time to join me in pursuing the rest of our team towards the mess hall.

We got our breakfast in due time as it had turned out that Yang had gotten us up early, which earned her a couple of glares from Weiss and I, and sat down at our table.

"Okay, I did NOT get enough sleep last night." I said, knowing full well that I was stating the obvious, "Well that wouldn't be a problem if you wouldn't stay up until one o'clock in the morning with Jaune and Nora having a sugar high, you dolt." Weiss replied crossly.

"Ah, let her figure out the stuff not to do on her own, Weiss. If she doesn't learn on her own, she won't learn it at all." Yang said through a mouth full of egg, "besides, you should concentrate on-"

"Hey girls," Blake cut in, uncharacteristically staring across the nearly empty hall, "What is it Blake?" I asked, surprised that the book that she had brought was now completely forgotten next to her plate. "Who's that?" she asked, pointing to one of the far tables.

We all looked across the hall to where Blake was pointing, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Where?" Weiss asked, also confused, "Table in the corner, no, not the far corner," the Faunus replied, "black cloak, hood up. They haven't moved an inch or eaten any of their food as far as I can tell."

I looked to where Blake had indicated, and finally spotted the person that she was referring to; the person did indeed have a black cloak on with the hood up over their head so as to hide their features, but the image still didn't come across as intimidating or out of the ordinary enough to catch attention.

"What about them?" I asked, very much confused, "They aren't moving or eating, maybe they aren't hungry?" I thought out loud, trying to rationalize the image.

"What about them caught your attention?" Weiss asked, "They were there yesterday and the day before, they've been doing that every morning for a week now; all they do is just sit there and slowly wave their fork over the food, not eating a bit of it, but the strangest thing is that I can't see what's beneath that hood." The Faunus girl explained, eyes never leaving the strange person sitting in the corner.

At that, we finally understood Blake's unease. "Can't see? Strange… maybe I could go and talk to them? Find out who they are?" I ventured.

At that, Blake ended her long stare at the hooded figure, turning to instead give me a curious look, then looked to Yang as if to say, 'I don't think it's a good idea.'

My sister had just the opposite impression, "That might work, but that guy straight up gives me goosebumps just looking at 'em" she stated, emphasizing her point with a little shiver.

I just shrugged and stood up with my tray, assuming that I was given permission by the blonde to try my luck at being amiable; but before I could take a step, Weiss grabbed my arm, "Ruby, I am going to have to side with Blake on this subject." She stated in a worried tone, "Oh, relax princess. Shady person with a hood on sitting in the corner? How bad could it be?" I replied with a slight hint of sarcasm as I strolled over to the cloaked person and sat across from them.

I noticed right away that the person was a girl from the slight figure and cleavage pushing out the front of her shirt, the next thing that I noticed was that the girl truly hadn't eaten _any_ of the food before her, despite the fact that it looked delicious and was likely getting cold.

"Uh, hi!" I started, trying to get some conversation going to ease the awkward situation, but I was completely unprepared for the girl's harsh response, "Who are you and who paid you to talk to me?"

I was taken aback by that, "w-wh-what?" I stuttered, "I said, who are you… and who paid you to talk to me? It's not hard to understand."

"I-I understand what you said, I'm just not used to such a harsh question after just saying 'hi' is all." I replied, coming back to my senses, 'well, definitely not the friendliest person I've ever met.'

"Would've thought that 'hooded, shady person in the darkest corner of the room' would make you less inclined to investigate and prod into someone." The girl shot back with a bit of venom in her voice.

'Waaaay not the friendliest person. Maybe even less than Weiss when we first met.' "well, you never know about people you don't know. I mean, I used to be the exact same way, and now-"

"now you're the most popular little bitch at Beacon? Is that the way it went? Because if so, I've heard those stories more times than I care to count." The girl shot with much venom in her voice, stopping me short.

"N-no, not the most popular, just I-I have a couple of friends now, and-and I am not a little cuss!" I retorted indignantly, offended by her language.

Her hood rose up slightly, as if the occupant was looking at me for real now.

"Wait a second, aren't you a bit young to be attending Beacon? How old are you?" she asked, sounding confused now.

"Wow, nothing but questions? Kind of thought it'd be the other way around." I replied with a hint of sarcasm, "Yes and only one of them have been answered. Start with who you are, why you are even talking to me, then why you're in Beacon for your age."

I guessed that it was the only way that I was going to get any pleasant-ish conversation out of her. So I sighed, took a breath, and tried to look the girl in the eye.

"My name is Ruby Rose, leader of team RWBY here at Beacon. I was allowed to attend Beacon as a full student by Dr. Ozpin after I singlehandedly defeated a group of armed robbers during one of their raids. That is why I'm here, attending Beacon. I came over to talk to you because I decided it would be the best way to put my team's nerves at rest as you were really creeping them out." I gestured over my shoulder towards my team.

The hood moved to the right a bit, making it seem like the girl was looking over my shoulder at them.

"The Faunus girl was unnerved by me because she couldn't see what's under my hood. Not surprising." She said simply, leaving me simply dumbstruck, "How could you figure out that Blake's a Faunus?" I asked incredulous,

"Almost no teenage human females wear bows anymore but for the most girly girls, and even then only at the back; your friend Blake doesn't fit the first one I can tell, and the bow is placed wrong for the second, so it's easy to determine that she's hiding either canine or feline ears. Also, she's giving me an intense eye-fucking right now. Things are simple to figure out if you observe, Sherlock."

To that I just sat there, not able to respond or get my head around how easy it was for her to just pick out little details that amounted to a big, surprising picture.

She was quiet for a while after, then spoke up a bit, "Team RWBY, huh? Guess I should apologize a bit for being rude, kinda admire you guys for all the good you've done."

That really surprised me. Good that we've done? Admire? Apologize? From what I knew of this girl, even though I knew so little about her, saying those things seemed entirely out of character for her.

I had to take a second to collect my thoughts for a response to that, then I knew exactly what I wanted to ask her to do to apologize.

"I answered your questions, so you answer mine and I'll consider that an apology. Fair?" I asked her.

For the record, she just snorted at first, then, "Fine, that's fair. What do you want to know?"

I was entirely bursting with questions, but I decided on a few good ones.

"Okay. One, why are you so rude to people right off the start? Two, why can't Blake see your face past your hood? Three, what weapon do you use? And four, who are you?"

She scoffed when she heard the second and third ones, but made no reactions to the other two that I had, making me wonder what she was feeling under that hood, and even more what she _looked_ like under that hood.

At first I thought that she wouldn't answer me, but then she began, "Alright then, fair is fair's fair." She said and heaved a sigh,

"The reason that I'm rude to people off the bat is because every time, but for one solitary case, that people have tried to talk to me, it was so that they could find a weakness and exploit it to its extent."

I cut in then, "Surely that can't be totally tr-" she cut me off before I could finish,

"It's true alright, and I'm guessing that it's not just from them, but also me. Touchy subject. Don't want to talk about that area. Next question, the reason that your Faunus friend can't see my face is because when I'm in shadows, nobody can see me. Literally, nobody. The reason for that goes back to the exact same touchy subject as before. Third question, I use a lotus voidblade katana and twin custom dust revolvers. Last question."

She heaved an even larger sigh at this one and said, "My name is Thorn."


	2. Cursed of Sorrow

**Okay everybody, thanks for taking a liking my story so fast, considering that it was edited and uploaded just last Tuesday night! And that's one point for Ladybug, but no suggestions for any of the other 3 (though there is the implied inverse). Remember to review and give a tally for your favorite shipping (they really will be kept track of you know!). Seeing that my work is appreciated so much really helps! Also; yes, I know that there's a tsundere detected on the radar. Many of my characters are categorized as tsunderes as they are mostly creepypasta characters. This is my first non-creepypasta fanfic actually.**

 **Shipping tally: Ladybug: 1, Freezerburn: 1, Bumblebee: 0, White Rose: 0**

Unknown to my mother, I was not long at sea; two or three days after she set me afloat, I was picked up by a Faunus fisherman and his daughter. The unfortunate fisherman did not know anything of his mistake of picking me up, and took me in for a while. For the first two months I seemed like a normal little kid, but after that my trail of misfortune began with the caravans being attacked by hordes of Grimm and continuing with other occurrences of bad luck and minor disasters, just enough that everyone in the town began believing that there was now something that was causing said events to happen.

-Blake Belladonna-

I was intrigued by that, "Thorn? Just 'Thorn'? No last name?"

"She wouldn't give me a last name." Ruby replied, "Just said something about a forced title and 'blood red roses', then she-"

"Are you saying that she is the Thorn of the Blood Red Rose?!" Weiss broke in.

"Who?" Yang and Ruby asked her with confused looks.

"No, can't be, the Thorn is supposed to be an urban myth to frighten children." I denied, unable to believe that a being that brought nothing but ruin and destruction wherever they went was even remotely possible.

"Then how do you explain this girl that basically just confessed it? And she shows all the traits that the Thorn is supposed to have; apathy for other beings, black hooded cloak that completely hides her from all eyes, but the name seals it for me. I believe that that girl is that same being." Weiss countered.

"I just can't believe that there is even a slight chance that there is a person who brings destruction and Grimm wherever they go." I stated, "It's just not plausible."

"Not plausible? Then how do you explain the Grimm? As far as I know, they are beings made of coalesced darkness and sorrow; so it's perfectly believable that it happened the same for the Thorn, but the outcome was in the shape of a human, not a wolf, bear, raven, etcetera."

At that Ruby decided that it was time for us to explain; "Hold up guys, you two seem to know things that Yang and I don't, so care to explain please?"

I was about to explain, but Weiss cut me off, "You have really never heard of the Thorn of the Blood Red Rose? Well, the story goes something along the lines of that the child was found floating in the ocean in a stone boat, held aloft in the water by dark powers. The man who found her took her in, but later found out that she brought nothing but disaster; the final event being that he was killed when his home and town was completely destroyed by a stampede of Grimm. The only living thing that was found after all the beasts were killed was the Thorn, who had hidden under the bodies of the family that took her in, and was found drawing a rose out of the blood of her adoptive family. Ever since that, the Thorn has wandered the world, given the name 'of the Blood Red Rose', and earning more and more deserved ire from every city that she visited. Eventually people realized that she did not travel with the armed caravans, but on her own, and was never attacked by the Grimm."

"That's not entirely true," I said after the heiress had finished her version, "In the version that I heard, she wasn't found in a floating stone boat, but a basket. She's not described as being a demon in the story, and the stone boat thing only makes it seem that way. And she had the name 'Thorn of the Blood Red Rose' from the beginning because there was a rose that had blood spattered on it in the basket with her. Next, she didn't hide under the bodies of the family that she was taken in by, but under a bed, and was found calling for her mother. The final difference that I'm noticing is that she did travel with the caravans, but none of them were ever attacked by the Grimm. That's all."

Ruby and Yang just sat there with matching thoughtful expressions until I decided to venture a question towards them, "So, what do you two believe?"

It took a couple seconds for it to come, but Yang was the first to reply, "I can't decide, I kinda don't believe that there could be a Grimm in the form of a human, but still, she did say that her name's Thorn and gave the last name of 'Blood Red Rose', so I'm in a bit of a loop here."

Ruby gave her two bits next, "I have to agree with Yang; she can't be a Grimm, she had too much emotion in her voice to be one. But the name..." she trailed off, and continued on her breakfast, still with a pensive look on her face.

'Guess that we'll see which it is when we have class with her in an hour. And I will find out how she's tricking my eyes with that hood.' I thought to myself, and began on my breakfast, still keeping an eye on this 'Thorn'.

-Weiss Shnee-

'We will see who is right when we get to class' I thought to myself as we walked towards Professor Port's classroom.

When we arrived, I noticed that the Thorn girl was in the very back of the class, her hood still over her head. I also noticed that she almost looked more hunched over than she had in the mess hall.

The bell rang a few minutes later and Professor Port strode with his usual pomp to the front of the room.

"Good morning, my adoring young scholars! We have a new student who was just recently accepted to Beacon! Will you please come up front with me, my dear?"

Of course it was the Thorn girl that he was referring to, and as she passed by I noticed that, with her cloak, she appeared to not be walking, but floating towards the front. This gave off not a feeling of beauty, as the description would normally have it, but one of spine and neck chilling fear, like seeing a ghost.

"This, my friends, is your new classmate; Thorn Ro-" She cut the Professor off short, saying, "It's just Thorn, sir. I've never had a last name in my life."

"Ah, my deepest apologies Miss Rose –oops, sorry- Miss Thorn." He said and gave her a soft pat on the shoulder.

"Would you please remove your hood, Miss Thorn? I am afraid that they are not allowed by Beacon's dress code policy."

At first she seemed to be very much opposed to the idea, but then she appeared to tense up as her arms appeared from under her cloak and pulled back her hood.

I was genuinely surprised by how she looked behind the shadowed hood; I had expected a grizzled, battle-worn face, torn with scars. Instead what I saw was a youthful face; a couple of freckles under her left eye, lightly tanned skin, thin lips and eyebrows, and short red hair that was so deep it was almost black, styled in an undercut so that the right side of her head was almost bare.

In fact, there were only two features that were blemishing the youthful beauty; a pale scar going from the left side of her forehead down in an inverted L shape across her right eye to end at the bottom of her cheek, and a pair of hard, piercing, rust red colored eyes that bore into my soul whenever she rested them on me.

I had seen those eyes before. They were a killer's eyes; the eyes of someone who had seen and lived hardship for so long that they were numb to it in others.

She stood there for a minute just looking at the rest of us in an almost threatening way that said, 'back the f**k off. I am the alpha predator here, the rest of you are all my _prey_.'

Fortunately she released the tension by calmly, almost amiably, stating, "It'll be nice to get acquainted with the rest of you over the next few days, I hope that it will be pleasant to be here at Beacon." and she walked, or floated, back to her seat.

'I believe for sure now. She is even more terrifying than before, what with those eyes of hers.'

After that, Professor Port resumed his never ending hunting story and I began glancing over my shoulder at the Thorn, at first surprised that she did not put her hood back up, but after that I realized that some of the times I found that she was gazing at me or Ruby, and I would quickly look away again, not wanting to get caught in that freezing gaze of hers that were like car headlights to a deer.

-Yang-

After Professor Port's class ended, we had Combat Studies with Glenda Goodwitch.

The first person scheduled to be in the ring was Pyrrha, as usual, and she handed a random team their asses on a bronze platter, as usual, and beat her last record by a few seconds, as usual.

After that, the fights were mixed so as to not be predictable and things got interesting.

That is, until Thorn got her turn; then things got really interesting.

In Port's class, I noticed that Weiss had been glancing over her shoulder at Thorn, as if she was actually _afraid_ of her. Sure I had seen the look the red head had given the class, and felt the chill of her gaze, but she hadn't given me _that_ much of a threatening impression.

But now, when she was in her combat gear, this was a different question entirely.

As she was making her way down to the ring I noticed her gear; she was still wearing the same black cloak as before, but in place of her school uniform she had literal armor on; a leather tunic-like thing that was made of hundreds of red dyed leather 'scales' and showed her figure, a pair of dark red dyed leather pants that looked to be loose but fitted her form protected her legs and were made of plates instead of scales that protected her leg muscles from all directions, she wore combat boots that were close in design to mine, but had metal hitches instead of shoelaces, she also had a strange, black and white mask hanging at her belt that had a circular rose and thorn design on it.

I think that the most interesting piece of her armor was the gauntlets that she wore; they appeared to be black and red leather gloves that reached halfway up to her elbows, but they also had metal plates strapped to the backs of them that looked like they could be detached one by one, the plates themselves had spikes coming off them that appeared to be fashioned to give the appearance of thorns, all curving back towards her upper arms.

'She really doesn't like being messed with.' I thought to myself.

I looked to my left at my little sis, who appeared to be staring intently at Thorn's weapons with her jaw hanging open and her eyes sparkling.

"I know that look Rubes, what's so interesting about 'em?" I whispered to her, "She said that they were custom and all, but I had no idea!" Ruby answered in an awed whisper.

I looked again at Thorn's weapons; one was what appeared to be a sword that was strapped to her back under the cloak, the handle poking out from behind her neck, the other two were what appeared to be a pair of matching black colored revolvers that looked like they would hurt if someone picked them up wrong as they had symmetrical spikes coming off the barrel and curving towards the muzzles.

"They're a couple of pistols and a sword, what's so cool about that?" I asked, perplexed.

"She told me that they're custom-made dust pistols; I'm guessing that she can even decide what type of dust she shoots, and that's not any sword; she said it was a lotus voidblade! Coolest swords in the world!" she answered, not taking her eyes off of the weapons.

"Who would you like to have as your opponent, Miss Thorn?" Professor Goodwitch asked when Thorn was in the ring.

She looked around a bit, and when her eyes passed over me and the rest of the team I felt the chill again, it almost felt like she was stripping us down and revealing all our secrets and weaknesses.

"I'll take on team JNPR, if you don't mind." she stated, and put on her mask.

"Are you sure that you want to take on a whole team all at once? Only a few students are good, stupid or brave enough to do that and one of them is Pyrrha." Goodwitch asked,

"Yes, I believe that I can." Thorn replied and drew her pistols.

I watched them as they made their way down to the ring and drew their weapons, Jaune getting into a defensive position with his shield in front and his sword held with the point directed at Thorn, Nora leaning on the shaft of her hammer with the head resting on the ground, Ren with his pistols pointing at the girl opposite him, and finally Pyrrha with her spear at the ready.

"Begin." Goodwitch said as she activated the scenery hologram.

Faster than I could see it happen, Thorn whipped up her pistols and fired one, sending a large cloud of deep purple dust across the whole area where it ignited and turned into a black mist that I couldn't see through.

"Velvet, can you see through that?" I asked the girl behind me, not wanting to miss a bit of action.

"Yes, but only their outlines; it's like trying to see through a fog." she replied, then cringed, "Ooh, poor Ren, that had to hurt."

"What? What happened? Tell me, tell me, tell me!" I asked impatiently, then heard a distinctive smack and 'ooft'.

Turning back to the ring, I saw that Ren had been thrown from the cloud and had hit the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

"That new student, Thorn, kicked him in the stomach. Now I think she's fighting Nora; she's ducking a right swing, returning fire with a couple of jabs from the right, and what the? Nora tries a left swing which Thorn counters by grabbing the hammer and using the reverse of the momentum of the swing to throw Nora to the ground. Wow, she fights like she has nothing to lose."

I was getting really excited, the adrenaline pumping through my system from the battle that I was imagining in my head.

Ren caught his breath and picked up his guns, but didn't re-enter the dark cloud, instead pointing them at it and circling around it.

Jaune found his stumbling way out of the mist, almost getting caught by a volley from Ren.

"Ren! Don't shoot! You don't know who you might hit!" the blonde leader said to his team mate.

Just as he was getting back up from the shots, Nora was sent flying out and caught him square in the chest.

"Thorn just did the same reverse momentum trick again on Nora, but this time she didn't keep a hold of the hammer." Velvet explained, "Must have gotten bored of playing with her. Now it's just Pyrrha, hope for the- OOH!"

I jumped at the exclamation, and looked to see that Violet had her hands over her mouth, her eyes really wide, "What happened?" I asked, really eager to know what Pyrrha or Thorn had done.

"Thorn caught Pyrrha with a slash to the back from that katana! Jumping back to avoid the retaliating slash, now a jump and she missed at a slam cut, EEP! It was a trick! Pyrrha just got hit by a uppercut!"

"Someone actually landed hits on Pyrrha... where did this girl learn to fight?!" I asked to nobody in particular.

"Pyrrha retaliates and lands Thorn with a hook from the butt of her spear!" Velvet paused, "Is she unconscious? Thorn's just lying the- WHOA! Another trick! Two-foot kick to the chest!"

Just as Velvet was saying it, Phyla appeared out of the cloud and landed on her feet, staggering a couple paces holding her chest before righting and running around the edge of the cloud which was finally beginning to dissipate.

When she arrived at the rest of her team, Jaune and Nora were up and at the ready.

"At the ready, she'll have to come out of that mist soon before it dissipates." Jaune said, finally taking his role as leader.

Thorn didn't exit the mist immediately, instead apparently deciding to shoot Nora with one of her pistols, but instead of a cloud of dust, it was a projectile that caused her body to be encased in ice. Then Thorn exited the mist, her pistol in one hand and her katana in the other, 'daaaaamn, she's badass.' I thought as the mist flowed like tendrils off of the masked girl.

"Ren, get Nora out of that. Pyrrha, let's take her." Jaune said, trying but failing to act brave. I could actually see his sword shaking as he held it.

"Let's take her? Are you underestimating me, Arc? Bad move." Thorn said to Jaune as she advanced on the two.

Her next motion was almost as fast as her first one of the match; her gun came up in an arcing motion, releasing a cloud of red dust in its wake that floated onto Jaune who stayed his ground, not understanding his mistake.

As Jaune was distracted by the cloud of dust, Thorn rushed him and began administering a beat down made even more explosive by the fire dust.

Ten hits onto the barrage, Pyrrha came to her senses and rushed Thorn, "I can see now, you won't have that advantage over me in this case!" she shouted as she was just about to swing her spear.

Thorn ducked Pyrrha's swing as easily as she had Nora's and the spear shaft collided with Jaune, causing him to be propelled back by both the spear's momentum and the resulting ignition of dust.

"Don't let yourself get cocky; it leads to mistakes." Thorn said to the red head as she brushed off her sleeves.

"You should speak for yourself! Acting like I don't have a single chance in a fair fight against you!" Pyrrha shouted as she tried for another swipe at the masked girl, "This? This is confidence is *urmph* all; but who am I kidding, I guess we *hrgh* both know that confidence is just ego with backup." Thorn countered as she blocked most of Pyrrha's strikes.

With a quick shove, Pyrrha knocked Thorn back far enough to change her spear into a rifle and take a shot at her opponent.

There was a loud sing of metal, and then I realized just what had happened: Thorn had just parried a BULLET away with a sword.

"I've been shot at and a few times hit; not an experience that I want to repeat." She said as she rushed back at Pyrrha with her sword flashing.

Pyrrha had just enough time to change her spear into its sword form and bring it up to stop the slash from Thorn and hold the two swords in front of her.

As the two stood facing each other in an apparent battle of strength, the masked girl tilted her head slightly, "Using your semblance, huh? Even if it's just slightly, I felt it. Clumsy, stupid, arrogant. Out there, against the Grimm, that doesn't work. It won't work in this case either. When you fight me, you treat it like you're fighting a very learned Grimm, not like a battle against another student." She growled at the red head as she swiped her foot forward and knocked Pyrrha's feet out from under her.

Thorn lowered her sword point to her fallen opponent's neck before she could get up, "Bang, you're dead." She said in a monotone voice.

The hologram disappeared around them, revealing the winner of the match and the time. Thorn was the first to speak to it, "Really? 5 minutes? Damn: either I've accumulated a bit of rust, or you guys put up quite a fight." She said appreciatively.

"You did not fight exactly fair, Miss Thorn." Was all that Professor Goodwitch said as the five left the ring, "I fight like a Grimm. That's all I have to justify why I fight like that." Thorn replied as she removed her mask.

'I need to talk to this chick.' Was all I thought as she left my view.

 **Sorry guys if you got confused by the narration provided by Velvet, I got it in my head and it was too good to pass up the idea of her sounding/looking uncharacteristically like an auctioneer and a radio host in one. Also; yes, I am so unoriginal: Thorn's pistols are supposed to be dust-firing versions of The Thorn from Destiny. And her katana is supposed to look like the Lotus Katana concept for Warframe by Studio4productions and 'freezing' when it came to Weiss. XD**


End file.
